Page 113 - Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor

masters, producing a sort of halo-like effect about a lovely head."

And Taylor at this time was evidently her match in looks as well as spirit.
A German friend describes him thus: "He was a tall, slender, blooming

young man, the very image of youthful beauty and purity. His intellectual
head was surrounded by dark hair; the glance of his eyes was so modest,
and yet so clear and lucid, that you seemed to look right into his heart."

On his return from Europe, young Taylor found that his letters to the

newspapers had attracted some attention, perhaps largely owing to the fact
that one who was almost a boy had made the journey on foot, with little or
no money. At the same time he had told his story in a simple,

straightforward way, which proved him to be a good reporter. Friends
advised him to gather the letters into a volume, which he did under the title,

"Views Afoot; or Europe Seen with Knapsack and Staff." Within a year six
editions were sold, and the sale continued large for a number of years.

Yet this success, quick as it was, did not solve all his difficulties at once.
He was anxious to earn a good living as soon as possible, that he might

marry Mary Agnew. After looking the field over, he and a friend bought a
weekly paper published in Phoenixville, a lively manufacturing town in the
same county as his home. This, with the aid of his friend, he edited and

managed for a year. He not only failed to make money, but accumulated
debts which he was three years in paying off. At the same time he found

that he could no longer endure a narrow country life. He tried to give his
paper a literary tone; but the people did not want a literary paper. They
cared more for local news and gossip, which he hated.

The old ambition and aspiration to be and to do something really worth

doing was still uppermost with him. In a letter to Mary Agnew he says:
"Sometimes I feel as if there were a Providence watching over me, and as if
an unseen and uncontrollable hand guided my actions. I have often dim,

vague forebodings that an eventful destiny is in store for me; that I have
vast duties yet to accomplish, and a wider sphere of action than that which I

now occupy. These thoughts may be vain; they spring only from the
ceaseless impulses of an upward-aspiring spirit; but if they are real, and to